Anjouan Gambling License: Comprehensive Guide 2026

The Anjouan online gambling license is an annual internet gaming authorisation issued under the laws of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of the Comoros. Anjouan Gaming administers it for the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority, under the Computer Gaming Licensing Act 007 of 2005. Issuance is €17,828, renewal is €17,828 a year, and each extra domain costs €500. One condition separates Anjouan from its offshore peers: every operator must engage an approved independent dispute resolution provider.

Operators choose Anjouan when time to market and a fixed regulatory bill matter more than banking prestige. A single license covers casino, sports betting, poker, bingo, prediction markets and crypto-enabled play. The trade-off sits on the payment side, where fiat acquirers still price the jurisdiction as high risk. Teams that shape the online casino build around the conditions before launch avoid rebuilding the cashier, the seal and the complaint flow after issuance.

Anjouan License Quick Facts

1. 01

   The Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority issues the license, with supervision by the Anjouan Gaming Board.

2. 02

   Anjouan Gaming, registered as Anjouan Licensing Services Inc., is the sole authorised administrator.

3. 03

   The Computer Gaming Licensing Act 007 of 2005 is the primary law behind every grant.

4. 04

   Two categories exist: operator approval for B2C brands, and service provider approval for suppliers.

5. 05

   The term runs 12 months and is renewed annually, never issued for a fixed multi-year period.

6. 06

   Issuance costs €17,828, non-refundable, and the figure is identical for both categories.

7. 07

   Annual renewal costs €17,828, payable every 12 months to keep the register entry active.

8. 08

   Each additional domain costs €500 per URL, charged once per annual cycle.

9. 09

   No duty on gross gaming revenue appears anywhere in the Authority's published fee schedule.

10. 10

    Corporate tax follows the jurisdiction of incorporation and is not set by the grant.

11. 11

    No review timeline is published; advisers report 4–8 weeks for a complete file.

12. 12

    No on-island server mandate is published, though security, availability and data integrity standards apply.

13. 13

    Player funds must be segregated from operational funds at all times.

14. 14

    An independent ADR provider is mandatory, chosen from the Authority's approved list.

15. 15

    Compliance reports fall due at prescribed intervals; Q1 2026 reports were due 30 April 2026.

What Is the Anjouan Gambling License?

Approval goes to a corporate applicant that clears the Authority’s due diligence assessment. That review covers corporate structure, key person suitability, source of funds and sanctions screening. Applicants must document the full ownership chain up to the ultimate beneficial owner. Specific conditions can be attached to any grant, based on the risk profile the regulatory authority identifies.

One comprehensive license covers the permitted activities written into its conditions, rather than a separate grant per product line. Malta approves verticals individually and expects €100,000 in share capital for a Type 1 authorisation. Anjouan offers two categories and no published minimum capital, with a recognition route for B2B gaming suppliers already approved elsewhere.

• Operator license (B2C) — a player-facing gaming platform offering betting, bingo, table games, prediction markets and crypto-enabled play.
• Service provider approval — critical suppliers of platform, software or technical services to approved brands.
• Recognition letter — a route for suppliers already holding a valid authorisation in an approved jurisdiction.
• Key Person Authorisation — individual approval for designated roles, including the compliance officer.

Why Operators Choose the Anjouan License

1. 01

   The fee is flat and does not track revenue.

   Issuance and renewal are both €17,828, whether the brand turns over €1m or €50m a year. Nothing in the schedule bands fees by gross gaming revenue, headcount or number of verticals. Only domains scale, at €500 each.

2. 02

   One license carries the whole product roadmap.

   Casino, sportsbook, poker, bingo, prediction markets and blockchain-based products sit inside a single set of permitted gaming activities. Adding a vertical does not trigger a fresh application or a second annual fee. Product sequencing becomes a commercial decision rather than a regulatory one.

3. 03

   The application process runs through four defined stages.

   Submission, information review, regulatory screening and issuance are the published sequence, with no hearing stage. Advisers report 4–8 weeks for a complete file. No published condition requires a local office, resident directors or on-island staff.

4. 04

   Supplier status is checkable before integration.

   The Authority publishes a recognition letter register beside the public register, recording each provider's country, validity period and approved URLs. A supplier absent from that register may not serve operators. Integration risk moves from contract negotiation to a register lookup.

5. 05

   The approved population is large enough to be familiar.

   Anjouan Gaming reported more than 1,650 licenses issued by 14 July 2026, with close to 1,500 active. Testing laboratories, aggregators and payment providers already price and process the framework. Onboarding conversations across the gaming industry start from recognition rather than explanation.

6. 06

   Independent dispute resolution is built into the regime.

   Operators run a 30-day internal complaints process, after which players may escalate to one of four approved ADR providers. The operator carries the cost of those proceedings. Payment partners assessing gambling operators for chargeback exposure can see a defined escalation path.

Anjouan Gambling License Costs in 2026

The fee model is deliberately flat. Both categories pay €17,828 at issuance and €17,828 at each annual renewal, and the published fee schedule attaches no percentage to turnover, deposits or player numbers. Regulators that band fees by revenue, such as the UK Gambling Commission with its annual fee categories, make operators re-forecast yield at each band crossing. The Anjouan fee stays identical either way.

2026 Fee Ledger: Application vs. Renewal vs. Key Person Costs

Cost line	2026 amount	What it covers
B2C issuance	€17,828, one-time	Entry in the public register on grant
B2C annual renewal	€17,828 per year	Continuation of the authorisation and the supervisory relationship
Service provider issuance and renewal	€17,828 each	Approval to supply platform, software and technical services
Additional domain or URL	€500 each	Endorsement of a further approved operational domain
Key Person Authorisation	Not published by the Authority	Approval of compliance officer and other designated roles
Recognition letter	Not published by the Authority	Recognition of a supplier already approved in another jurisdiction
Amendments and replacements	Quoted on request	Domain changes, amendments, replacement certificates

Costs outside the schedule decide the real first-year number. Company formation, registered office, ADR subscription, RNG and game certification, hosting, KYC tooling and PSP onboarding all sit outside the €17,828, which is why the full first-year cost stack matters more than the headline fee. A single-brand launch typically lands between €30,000 and €45,000 in year one, before platform fees and content revenue share.

How to Get an Anjouan Gaming License

Obtaining an Anjouan gambling license starts with a complete file, because the licensing process runs in the order submissions are received. Incomplete files wait until the missing material arrives, and further documentation can be requested at any stage. Due diligence covers corporate structure, key persons, source of funds and sanctions screening. Approval is granted subject to standard and specific conditions, with an entry in the public register.

• Incorporate the applicant entity — a company in Anjouan is not required — and assemble certified formation documents.
• Map the ownership chain to every ultimate beneficial owner, with identification, proof of address and personal declarations.
• Prepare financial evidence: audited statements where available, bank references and source of funds documentation.
• Nominate the compliance officer and any other designated roles for Key Person Authorisation.
• List every operational domain the brand will use, including staging and redirect URLs that touch real-money play.
• Contract an approved ADR provider and align the internal complaints procedure with the 30-day escalation window.
• Confirm each critical supplier holds Anjouan approval or appears on the recognition register.
• Submit the forms, declarations and the non-refundable fee, then answer information requests in one batch.

Four to eight weeks is realistic processing time for a clean file. Slippage comes from the same predictable places as any any offshore application: holding structures with undocumented intermediate owners, source of funds evidence arriving in fragments, domains discovered after submission, and suppliers whose recognition status is still pending. Each turns one review round into three.

Anjouan vs. Curaçao 2026: A Technical and Financial Comparison

Curaçao rebuilt its gaming licensing regime under the LOK, in force since 24 December 2024, and now regulates operators directly rather than through master license holders. Application costs €4,592, and the annual B2C charge published for the Curaçao online gaming regime is €47,450: €24,490 to the treasury plus €22,960 in supervision fees. Anjouan charges €17,828 at issuance and the same at renewal, in either category.

Factor	Anjouan 2026	Curaçao 2026
Application fee	€17,828 issuance	€4,592, non-refundable
Annual cost, B2C	€17,828	€47,450 (€24,490 treasury + €22,960 supervision)
Annual cost, supplier	€17,828	€24,490
Additional domain	€500 per URL	Registered per brand with the regulator
Typical timeline	4–8 weeks	3–6 months
Local substance	None published	Local company, physical office, local hiring
Player complaints	Mandatory independent ADR, operator pays	Regulator does not mediate or arbitrate individual disputes
Reporting channel	Compliance reports at prescribed intervals	Periodic, incident and change reports through the CGA portal

The sharpest split is not the fee, it is who absorbs the complaint. The Curaçao Gaming Authority states plainly that it does not mediate individual player disputes or order compensation. Anjouan rules route the same disputes into a structured ADR channel that the operator funds, after a 30-day internal window. Complaint handling then becomes an export problem: case history, wagers, KYC status and bonus terms must reach an external panel without platform access.

The financial comparison is roughly €30,000 a year in favour of Anjouan, before substance costs. The supervisory comparison runs the other way. Curaçao demands structured portal submissions across three report types and a physical presence on the island, and delivers acquirer recognition in return. Offshore licensing costs less, and Anjouan asks for less overhead and leaves more of the trust-building work to the operator’s own evidence.

Required ISP Services: Managing Compliance Backups and Local Residency

Fee breakdowns circulated by intermediaries often show an ISP compliance backup line, and some describe local residency duties. The Authority’s published regulatory framework sets no on-island hosting mandate and no residency requirement for directors or staff. What it does set is an infrastructure standard: systems hosting gaming and control functions must meet defined security, availability and data integrity requirements. Material changes to infrastructure or platform providers must be notified.

The practical reading is that “ISP services” describes a retrieval capability rather than a location. Evidence must survive a provider change, a migration and a suspension, and it must be produceable on request.

• Backup and restore procedures with tested recovery, covering player, transaction and complaint records.
• Retention of KYC files, payment logs, game history and correspondence across the full license term.
• Domain ownership proof for every approved URL, matching the entry in the public register.
• Access control records: role separation, multi-factor authentication and administrative action logs.
• Incident records for downtime, security events and recovery actions, with dates and responsible roles.
• A named contact able to answer an Authority information request inside the notice period given.

Two architectural consequences follow. The first is that the seal is a live object, not an image: it must sit site-wide, unmodified, linked to the operator’s verification page, and it must come down immediately on suspension, revocation or expiry. That requires the seal component to read status rather than sit hard-coded in a footer template.

The second is that domain control and provider control are regulatory requirements, which puts infrastructure planning inside the compliance calendar. Real-money play may only run on approved domains, so DNS changes, new mirrors and campaign subdomains become filings rather than marketing tasks. A platform migration is a notifiable event, which means infrastructure roadmaps need the same review cycle as ownership changes.

Technical Snapshot: Evidence Expected Before Launch

Supervision is risk-based and continuous, so compliance requirements are tested through the year rather than at renewal. The Authority monitors through periodic reporting, information requests and review of operational data, and it published a reminder in March 2026 that Q1 reports were due by 30 April 2026. It also revised the Certificate Verification Framework with effect from 1 April 2026. The evidence below is what a review typically asks a platform to produce, from RNG certification through to complaint logs.

System area	Implementation requirement	Evidence the regulator asks for
Player accounts	Age verification and identity checks before withdrawal	Verification records with timestamps and outcome codes
Anti-money laundering	Transaction monitoring rules and suspicious activity workflow	Rule configuration, alert log, compliance officer reports
Player funds	Segregation of player balances from operating accounts	Reconciliation statements and bank confirmations
Game integrity	RNG certified by an approved independent testing facility	Certificates, build versions, game release list
Domains	Real-money play restricted to approved URLs	Domain register matching the public entry
Interactive seal	Unmodified site-wide seal linked to the verification page	Rendered seal, link target, documented removal procedure
Complaints and ADR	30-day internal process with escalation to an approved provider	Case log, response times, ADR provider agreement
Change control	Notification of material infrastructure or provider changes	Change log with notification dates and acknowledgements

Payment architecture carries its own deadline. PCI DSS v4.0.1 is the only active version, and its 51 previously future-dated requirements became mandatory on 31 March 2025. Requirement 6.4.3 forces an inventory of every script on a payment page, with authorisation and integrity checks. Requirement 11.6.1 adds tamper detection on payment page content and HTTP headers. A cashier loading third-party analytics or chat widgets now needs a script manifest, not a tag manager habit.

Information security certification has already passed its cutover. Certificates issued against ISO/IEC 27001:2013 became invalid after 31 October 2025, and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 restructured Annex A into 93 controls across four themes, 11 of them new. Threat intelligence, cloud security and secure development now sit inside the certified scope, which maps onto the data integrity and availability expectations above. AML monitoring rules and customer risk tiers deserve the same treatment, written against the FATF Recommendations rather than assembled market by market.

How the Anjouan License Compares With Other Licenses

Headline fees rank gaming jurisdictions badly. Cost is cost, but the binding limit is usually a constraint written into the conditions: where servers must sit, how many verticals need separate grants, which shareholders must be local, or which acquirers will settle. The list below reads each jurisdiction by that constraint.

• Isle of Man (GSC) — £5,250 application, then £36,750/yr. 10–12 weeks. Constraint: on-island servers, two resident directors, local client bank account.
• Malta (MGA) — €5,000 application, €25,000/yr, plus a €15,000–€375,000 compliance contribution on a Type 1 authorisation. 6–12 months. Constraint: verticals approved individually, €100,000 share capital.
• Curaçao (CGA) — €4,592 application, €47,450/yr. 3–6 months. Constraint: local company, physical office, local hiring.
• Kahnawake (KGC) — $40,000 in year one, then $20,000/yr. 8–12 weeks. Constraint: primary servers inside Mohawk Territory.
• Tobique (TGC) — from $36,000/yr. 4–8 weeks. Constraint: recognition is narrow outside North America.
• Costa Rica — no gaming license exists; costs cover incorporation and a data-processing permit. 2–6 weeks. Constraint: no number to show acquirers or content providers.

The useful metric for global gaming brands is cost per reachable market, not cost per grant. Brazil’s R$30m five-year concession buys one supervised market, roughly R$6m a year for access to 200 million people. Great Britain prices the same way from the other direction: annual fees move with gross gambling yield, and fee income rises 25% under the confirmed fee changes effective 1 October 2026. For international operators, Anjouan buys a permission, not a market.

How NuxGame Helps With the Anjouan License

Anjouan iGaming license applications stall in two places. Ownership evidence is the first: chains running through several holding companies need source of funds documented for every beneficial owner. Platform readiness is the second, where policies in the file describe controls the product does not yet have. The NuxGame legal team handles company registration, beneficial ownership files, AML and KYC policies, responsible gaming documentation, banking and PSP setup, and submission.

Deployment for operators licensed in Anjouan turns on four settings: approved domains, seal behaviour, complaint routing and report exports. Domain records must match the register entry exactly, and the seal must render site-wide, then disappear on status change. Integrations delivered through the casino API keep the supplier list mapped against recognition status, so a provider missing from the register is caught before integration rather than during a supervisory review, whether the brand runs as a turnkey deployment or an API build.

Preparing an Anjouan filing this quarter? The NuxGame team can review the ownership file, supplier register and platform evidence before submission — start with legal services.